Another mayor in Slovakia is a Rom. This is a trend, as more and more Roma get involved in politics. In this case, it is in Strány pod Tatra, where the Roma candidate won. The village of roughly 2’300 inhabitants has above 90% of Roma residents.
The municipality of Prizren in Kosovo decided that Romanes would become an official language of the municipality. This is rather surprising, when one think that many of the Roma living there were expelled after the war and that racism against Roma is still very much prevalent in Kosovo.
The greatest responsibility for the fact that the Roma community still does not have its own representative in the parliament lies with the politicians, because their voting on any socio-political issue depends on their agreements and party interests, according to the Institution of the Protector of Human Rights and freedom of Montenegro.
Back in 2013, the Institution of the Protector expressed the position that the Roma community should be provided with a lower census in order to be adequately represented in the Parliament of Montenegro, but even today, 30 years after the introduction of multi-party system, the Roma are the only national minority that does not have its own representative in the parliament.
Well, one can and should argue that members of parliament should NOT be allocated along ethnic lines but rather that parties should get minorities involved.
An epidemic outbreak of hepatitis A was registered in the Roma district of Kosharnik in Montana. The Bulgarian Red Cross (BRC) provided 300 hygiene packages and health and educational materials to its residents, reports the BRC.
Preventive and anti-epidemic measures have already been taken on site to limit the spread of the infection among the vulnerable communities in the Roma neighborhood. Each of the hygiene packages provided is individual and includes hand sanitizer, soap, washing powder, shampoo, wet wipes, reusable face masks, etc.
According to the Slovak ÚHP analyst Marek, Health insurance companies make money from poor Roma. It is immoral. “The facts are quite clear. The health outcomes are terrible, at the level of the third world, and those insured are profitable for health insurance,” says Marek.
Bad.
The mayors of 11 municipalities in South-Eastern Slovenia submitted an initiative to to amend five laws to “resolve” Roma issues. They want “to protect children” who have no future in Roma settlements. Municipalities have exhausted the possibilities for rescue, so a systemic approach by the state as soon as possible is necessary, including changes in legislation. They proposed changes to the laws on parental care and family benefits, on social security benefits, on regulating the labour market, on the protection of public order and peace, and on drivers.
Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob also spoke about the initiative of the mayors of 11 municipalities in southeastern Slovenia to change laws related to Roma issues.
Last time there was such an initiative, the laws were actually repressive, so let’s see.
The International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust organised a meeting devoted to the extermination of the Roma for the inhabitants of Oświęcim and its vicinity. It will be held on November 4.
The Centre announced that the meeting is part of the “Around the History of Auschwitz” series. Classes have been conducted since May this year.
According to the EU Fundamental Right Agency (FRA) Report on Roma, Roma in the Czech Republic, poverty threatens 77 % of Romani people, a clear deterioration of the situation as compared to 2016, when poverty threatened 58 % of Roma.
An article about Bronisława Wajs, better known under the name of Papuša, a Polish Romni and poet who lived till the end of her live for 30 years in Gorzow.
The director of the Slovak National Theatre (SND), Matej Drlička had to resign following sarcastic remarks he made about “national artists” who worked in the past or still work in SND ensembles, “that I guess they are the most important people in Slovakia”. He also added comments addressed to politicians who are he said, are fulfilling their constitutional duties, noting “that unfortunately they are still breathing”.
He was referring to Roma.
The Minister of Culture Natália Milanová accepted his resignation and stated that the remarks were beyond the bounds of decent behaviour. The former Culture Minister, Marek Maďarič, on the other hand stated that “Matej Drlička is such a high-quality manager that I would fight for him even against the will of the committee if I were the minister, even more so because he apologized promptly and, in my opinion, sufficiently for his statement.”
No comments.
The Slovak summary of the EU studies on Roma. The Slovak Paper also gives a better understanding of how the survey was done.
The report “Roma in 10 European countries”, which also deals with the situation of Roma in Slovakia, points to little progress since the last survey in 2016. Although there has been some improvement, the general finding is that Roma families still live in shocking conditions and their prospects for education and employment are poor. Data for Slovakia showed that 14 percent of Roma experienced harassment motivated by hatred on ethnic grounds, which is a significant – 23 percent decrease – compared to 2016.
The survey was conducted on a sample of 8,500 Roma respondents with information on more than 20,000 household members in the Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Spain and Italy, while FRA also supported the collection of national data on Roma in Bulgaria and Slovakia.
Combating anti-Gypsyism and discrimination in its various forms and supporting access to quality inclusive education are two of the priority areas of the Council of Europe’s Strategic Action Plan for Roma and Traveller Inclusion (2020-2025).
Knowledge of the history and culture of the Roma and Travelers is still marginal or even non-existent among the general public and this misreading strongly contributes to the discrimination to which these populations are confronted.
There is an urgent need to highlight the contribution of Roma and Travelers to European societies through culture, arts and history. Educational policies on minorities are urgent.
Sead Kazanxhiu’s illustrated book, Roma Tales and Legends (published in trilingual: Albanian, English, Romani and separately in French) is an important contribution to the recognition and understanding of Roma culture, for Roma and non-Roma children and for the general population.
The movie “N.M.R. » : welcome to Transylvania from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu stages a village in the depths of Romania to evoke community tensions and racism. A Romanian returns to his village in Transylvania, with Romanians, Hungarians, and Roma. Hungarians and Romanians are united to to chase Roma from the village. And almost all are determined do the same to three Sri Lankan workers, “low cost” employees who have just been hired in the factory.
To be seen!
For over two hours, the Bulgarian Vide-President Iliana Yotova discussed with Romane girls and women the problems they face and possible solutions. Yotova was a guest at a national meeting of Roma women “Girls with dreams: let’s turn the page”, which was held at the University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”. The seminar, organized by the Amalipe Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance, brought together participants from all over the country. The management of “Amalipe” thanked the vice president for his constant support over the years.
Twenty-five years ago, on October 18, 1997, after fishing, basketball and family gatherings, the Saturday day of a fourteen-year-old elementary school student from Belgrade should have ended peqacefully. Instead, around nine in the evening, Dušan Jovanović was knocked to the ground in front of a store near Belgrade’s Slavija by attackers, where they kicked him in the head with a cobblestone, and then hit him with part of a torn gutter.
He was killed only because he was a Roma. The killers were only three years older than the boy and were sentenced to a decade in juvenile prison in Valjevo. Both were released from prison in April 2004.
“That was the event that drove us to the streets for the first time,” says Osman Balić, director of the Yurom Center from Niš and president of the presidency of the League of Roma – the permanent conference of Roma citizens’ associations, for the BBC in Serbian.
An employee of the Secretariat of the Human Rights Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine carried out a planned monitoring visit to the site of a compact Roma settlement, located on Pershotravneva and Radyanska Streets in the village of Ozerna, Safyanivska Rural Territorial Community, Izmail District, Odesa Region, in order to verify the observance of the rights and freedoms of representatives of the Roma national minorities under martial law.
During the visit, it was found out that residential buildings of representatives of the Roma national minority were at risk of collapsing into Lake Yalpug. Due to landslides, the coastline is decreasing. Today, the distance from the cliff to the nearest yard is less than five meters.
It has also been established that only eight of the sixteen houses are inhabited. They need to be resettled urgently. Another issue is the strengthening of the coastline to avoid further erosion of the coast.
Taking into account the above facts and circumstances, the situation requires the state authorities and local self-government bodies to implement a policy aimed at solving problematic issues. In particular, this is a solution to the issue of coastal fortification, provision of water supply and other communications, as well as the inclusion of these issues in the strategic development plan of the community where the Roma settlement is located.
Let’s see what effectively happens … Probably all Roma will be resettled, but not provided with new houses …
Géza Ásós, who opened Hungary’s first Gypsy restaurant in Békés 11 years ago, gave a presentation at the first International Roma Business Forum in Brussels. In an interview with the Hungarian broadcast of Euronews, he said that his restaurant connects Hungarians and Roma. According to him, integration is helped by the fact that there is a labour shortage in Hungary, as a result of which Roma workers are encountered in more and more places and in more and more positions.
The Roma Business Forum was held in the European Parliament. The conference was organized by Fidesz MEP Lívia Járóka in order for Gypsy businessmen and EU decision-makers to share their experiences of difficulties and best practices. It is to be noted that Lívia Járóka is somewhat contested, as she fully supports the Orban government in spite of its repeated statements and acts on Roma.
Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, Olivér Várhelyi, the EU Commissioner responsible for enlargement and neighbourhood policy, and Attila Sztojka, a member of the Hungarian Parliament, who as a government commissioner assists with matters related to the Roma, spoke at the meeting.
The twenty-nine-year-old Rom Vasil Medvědenko, together with his brother, volunteered for the Ukrainian army after seeing the footage of the massacre in Bucha. He decided to defend his homeland. At first Vasil could not believe the news about the Russian invasion, but after a few days he was sure that it was really a war. “I realized that this is a big problem for my country, where I grew up and raised my children. At first I thought that it wouldn’t last long, maybe a month, maybe it would end sooner, but when I saw the news about Bucha, I realized that it would be for a long time. It was the terrible events in Bucha that forced me to act – to voluntarily defend my native country,” he told RomaUA, a Ukrainian Roma information site that reported his story.
The music group “Fekete Vonat” [Black Train] has reunited and released a new album. They played together for only five years, and it has been twenty years since the band broke up.
The band was founded in 1997. It got its name from the train transporting workers during the Kádár era. The black train brought and took workers from Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county to the capital and the country’s major cities. Among the passengers there were many unskilled Roma helpers living in segregation.
With this choice of name, the Fekete Vonat band announced their support for the Hungarian Roma and the importance of the fight against segregation and racism. That is why around the turn of the millennium they enjoyed huge popularity among the Roma in Hungary and abroad, and the whole country was in love with their songs and soundscape.
Very recently, a discussion started in Bulgaria as to whether the singer Preslava, who is famous in Bulgaria might be a part or fully Romani. She did not comment on it …
And frankly, so what?
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